Electrostatic mis-interactions cause overexpression toxicity of proteins in E. coli.

A majority of E. coli proteins when overexpressed inhibit its growth, but the reasons behind overexpression toxicity of proteins remain unknown. Understanding the mechanism of overexpression toxicity is important from evolutionary, biotechnological and possibly clinical perspectives. Here we study s...

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Main Authors: Gajinder Pal Singh, Debasis Dash
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2013-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0064893&type=printable
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author Gajinder Pal Singh
Debasis Dash
author_facet Gajinder Pal Singh
Debasis Dash
author_sort Gajinder Pal Singh
collection DOAJ
description A majority of E. coli proteins when overexpressed inhibit its growth, but the reasons behind overexpression toxicity of proteins remain unknown. Understanding the mechanism of overexpression toxicity is important from evolutionary, biotechnological and possibly clinical perspectives. Here we study sequence and functional features of cytosolic proteins of E. coli associated with overexpression toxicity to understand its mechanism. We find that number of positively charged residues is significantly higher in proteins showing overexpression toxicity. Very long proteins also show high overexpression toxicity. Among the functional classes, transcription factors and regulatory proteins are enriched in toxic proteins, while catalytic proteins are depleted. Overexpression toxicity could be predicted with reasonable accuracy using these few properties. The importance of charged residues in overexpression toxicity indicates that nonspecific electrostatic interactions resulting from protein overexpression cause toxicity of these proteins and suggests ways to improve the expression level of native and foreign proteins in E. coli for basic research and biotechnology. These results might also be applicable to other bacterial species.
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spelling doaj-art-80cd7f22747d4923ac801015d6b0e01e2025-08-20T02:05:32ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032013-01-0185e6489310.1371/journal.pone.0064893Electrostatic mis-interactions cause overexpression toxicity of proteins in E. coli.Gajinder Pal SinghDebasis DashA majority of E. coli proteins when overexpressed inhibit its growth, but the reasons behind overexpression toxicity of proteins remain unknown. Understanding the mechanism of overexpression toxicity is important from evolutionary, biotechnological and possibly clinical perspectives. Here we study sequence and functional features of cytosolic proteins of E. coli associated with overexpression toxicity to understand its mechanism. We find that number of positively charged residues is significantly higher in proteins showing overexpression toxicity. Very long proteins also show high overexpression toxicity. Among the functional classes, transcription factors and regulatory proteins are enriched in toxic proteins, while catalytic proteins are depleted. Overexpression toxicity could be predicted with reasonable accuracy using these few properties. The importance of charged residues in overexpression toxicity indicates that nonspecific electrostatic interactions resulting from protein overexpression cause toxicity of these proteins and suggests ways to improve the expression level of native and foreign proteins in E. coli for basic research and biotechnology. These results might also be applicable to other bacterial species.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0064893&type=printable
spellingShingle Gajinder Pal Singh
Debasis Dash
Electrostatic mis-interactions cause overexpression toxicity of proteins in E. coli.
PLoS ONE
title Electrostatic mis-interactions cause overexpression toxicity of proteins in E. coli.
title_full Electrostatic mis-interactions cause overexpression toxicity of proteins in E. coli.
title_fullStr Electrostatic mis-interactions cause overexpression toxicity of proteins in E. coli.
title_full_unstemmed Electrostatic mis-interactions cause overexpression toxicity of proteins in E. coli.
title_short Electrostatic mis-interactions cause overexpression toxicity of proteins in E. coli.
title_sort electrostatic mis interactions cause overexpression toxicity of proteins in e coli
url https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0064893&type=printable
work_keys_str_mv AT gajinderpalsingh electrostaticmisinteractionscauseoverexpressiontoxicityofproteinsinecoli
AT debasisdash electrostaticmisinteractionscauseoverexpressiontoxicityofproteinsinecoli